Speed Dating, Wild Turkey style.

On our way back from visiting the beaver pond, we spotted wild turkeys in the field next to the Fire Hall.

Three days ago, we saw them in the field across from the Fire Hall... and we hear them often now, gabbling and gobbling away in the woods.

Catching a glimpse of them, and getting them onto film, however, are two different breeds of turkey... they are wily, shy creatures who move away as soon as they suspect they are about to be targetted by the papparazzi.

While we were able to sit in the car and admire the tom displaying for his harem of hens, this was the best photo I was able to catch.

Lucky for me, some friends have been more successful. Mike sent me these pictures, taken on the Limberlost Road, of a tom turkey strutting his stuff. Mike (and I say this is the nicest possible sense) really can sound like a turkey, and he was able to call the tom closer to the road -- and the camera.

The huge fan tail rather hides the turkey, however! It's rather like the farmer from Saskatchewan who retired to Vancouver. Asked how he liked it, he admitted it was nice enough, but the mountains sure did block the view...

The toms strut their stuff, wings lowered, tails raised, and colourful heads held high. Evidently it impresses the ladies.

These are BIG birds. Last summer we found a roost tree, and we've got fingers crossed that they will be returning to that this year again. It's hard to imagine these big chaps flying up into the trees, but that's what they do. When you watch them strut and fan up their tails, you'd never believe they could even fly. You might not be far wrong -- they aren't going to give an eagle a run for the money in the air, but they can get good vertical lift into trees. There were two shining moments that stick in memory about turkeys in flight. The first was several years ago, when it was still very rare to see them. I was driving home from Dorset, where Highway 35 winds through some very impressive rockcuts. A turkey leapt from the top of one cliff and began to flap across the road. He was steadily losing altitude, approaching the vertical cliff face. With images of Wiley Coyote plastering himself onto rock walls in my mind, I couldn't take my eyes off this desparate flight. The turkey made it -- just. And I found myself slamming on the brakes to avoid plastering myself into the same rock cliff! Moral of the story: eyes on the road, not on the turkeys around you!!!

The second incident was on our lawn here at Bondi, last summer. A large flock of turkeys were grazing their way across the lawn. When we came around the corner into their line of sight, most of them scurried for cover in the trees by the road, but several took to the air. One of them, the one who had evidently failed the navigation portion of flight school, flew slap into the side of Tamarack cottage... trickled down the wall to the ground, and then ran, rather unsteadily, for cover. No turkeys were harmed in this incident, but there is a small dent in the siding of the cottage.


Special thanks to Mike for sharing his pictures, and also to Deb Bradley, who caught this glorious close-up of a tom turkey in full breeding splendour. Who could possibly resist a face like this?